By Thomas M. O’Toole, Ph.D. Next month, the largest jury trial to date against opioid manufacturers, distributers, and sellers will take place in northeastern Ohio.
By Thomas M. O’Toole, Ph.D. Despite what Allen Iverson might say (search “Allen Iverson” and “practice” on YouTube if you do not get this reference),
By Jill D. Schmid, Ph.D. I was recently reading an article that was published a few years ago in our local bar journal about the
By Thomas M. O’Toole, Ph.D. and Scott Herndon, M.A. In 2016, Oxford Dictionaries chose “post-truth” as its word of the year. It defined it as
By Thomas M. O’Toole, Ph.D. Jury selection is difficult. It is impossible to predict exactly how any one individual is going to decide the case.
by Thomas M. O’Toole, Ph.D. Each year in the United States, juries award billions of dollars in damages to plaintiffs. In 2014, a jury in
By Thomas M. O’Toole, Ph.D. We quickly learned that Richard was a horrible juror for us in the trucking accident case we were working on.
By Thomas M. O’Toole, Ph.D. This past Friday, I conducted our first ever all-day mock jury selection workshop in Seattle. Ten attorneys spent the day
By Thomas M. O’Toole, Ph.D. Sadly, research on cultural changes in America over the past few decades show that we have become more of a
By Thomas M. O’Toole, Ph.D. One of the often-overlooked features of the social media revolution is how it has changed the consumer/product dynamic. In this
By Thomas M. O’Toole, Ph.D. Some of the best case strategies that we have developed with our clients over the years resulted in the other
By Thomas M. O’Toole, Ph.D. The “law of least effort” is an important principle for understanding jury decision-making. In short, if there are several ways
By Thomas M. O’Toole, Ph.D. The critical takeaway from any meaningful discussion about primacy theory and its role in persuading jurors is often the one
By Thomas M. O’Toole, Ph.D. One of the most commonly-cited statistics in communication studies is that verbal communication (i.e. the words that are actually said)
By Thomas M. O’Toole, Ph.D. What is the most appropriate pace of speech? A common belief among trial attorneys is that it is important to
By Thomas M. O’Toole, Ph.D. Over the past few months, I’ve celebrated my 40thbirthday, my 15thyear in the jury consulting industry, and the 5-year anniversary
By Thomas M. O’Toole, Ph.D. An important lesson I have learned from observing jurors’ decision-making in mock trials is that jurors sometimes dislike strategies that
By Thomas M. O’Toole, Ph.D. Last year, famed actor Johnny Depp filed a lawsuit against his management company for professional negligence, breach of fiduciary duty, fraud,
By Jill D. Schmid, Ph.D. Lately I’ve been following the debate about how the media should cover Trump’s statements – whether via Tweet, rally, official
By Jill D. Schmid, Ph.D. When Colin Kaepernick first took a knee in 2016 during the National Anthem to protest police brutality against African-Americans, the
